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My Father's Boat

from Live at the Robin by Brandon Grafius

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Original version on the album "Highways and Backroads"

lyrics

My father and his father spent a summer
Building a boat with their hands
Moving along with the grain
Yielding to the wood’s demands

They soaked the plywood to bend it
Around the hull’s oaken ribs
Guiding the form of the pieces
With time and tools and all they had to give

It carried them over the waves
That rolled on the face of Lake Michigan
Carried them through wind and rain
And brought them home again

The only work I can build
Are these songs that my fingers shape
Bending ‘round the neck of my guitar
Moving across its face

My father’s father died forty years ago
That boat rode the waves for its last time
But I'm searching for a craft
With chords of oak and plywood rhymes

To carry you over the waves
That roll on the face of Lake Michigan
To carry you through wind and rain
And bring you home again

credits

from Live at the Robin, released May 26, 2023
Brandon Grafius: guitar, vocals
Tom Ryberg: piano

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all rights reserved

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about

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Brandon Grafius Delhi Charter Township, Michigan

Brandon Grafius has spent most of his life in Michigan, and has been performing in the Lansing area for almost 20 years. When he's not playing guitar, he teaches Old Testament and Hebrew at Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit.

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